


In Which We Grieve

by portraitofemmy



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Dreams, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 04, Quentin's Dead But They Make It Work, The Underworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22484737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofemmy/pseuds/portraitofemmy
Summary: Eliot dreams about Quentin.Not every night. Half the time he doesn't remember what he dreams at all, lost in an unconscious haze brought by drink or other substance. Other times it's just– trauma, pure and unfiltered, his helpless brain trying to process the unending slog of shit he's been through for... his entire fucking life.But sometimes he dreams of QIn which Quentin is dead, and Eliot grieves, and somehow they make it work anyway.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 40
Kudos: 147





	In Which We Grieve

**Author's Note:**

> This exists because the only person I want comforting Eliot in his grief for Quentin is— Quentin. It's not exactly season 5 compliant, but it's not totally divergent either. Yeah, it's— it's sad? But I hope it's also hopeful too.
> 
> This is unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own, but thanks to **propinquitous** for the encouragement.

Eliot dreams about Quentin. 

Not every night. Half the time he doesn't remember what he dreams at all, lost in an unconscious haze brought by drink or other substance. Other times it's just– trauma, pure and unfiltered, his helpless brain trying to process the unending slog of _shit_ he's been through for... his entire fucking life.

But sometimes he dreams of Q.

The first time it happens, he finds himself on the prow of an unfamiliar boat, which is an odd thing to dream about, for him. Eliot's been prone to sea-sickness since the first time he stepped out on the water, and while a protracted stint on the Muntjac had forced him to adapt a bit, it's never been the kind of thing that captured his subconscious. But it's night, and the stars are beautiful, and he finds himself standing at the railing of the boat, gazing out over the water for a while, taking in the beauty of it. Aching as he has been, constantly, a bleeding wound in the center of his chest, higher up and deeper than the one left by Margo's axes. 

Then there's a sound behind him, and Eliot turns around to see him, stepping up from below deck. 

He's– different, than any memory of him that Eliot had in the Happy Place. His hair is short and he's thinner, and he's wearing clothes that look vaguely Fillorian, but nicer than anything he'd ever worn at the Mosaic, tight grey pants and black knee-high boots and a loose blue shirt. He looks up, looks at Eliot, and surprise colors his face and he says "El?" and it's his voice and–

Eliot's legs give out. 

He hits the deck of the boat with a crack, and everything he's been trying not to feel for _weeks_ washes up in his chest, and it's only Quentin rushing forward to grab him that stops Eliot from pitching sideways off the boat as he _breaks_ , and breaks down, eyes streaming, running nose, mouth open in loud, hacking sobs. Quentin catches Eliot against against his chest he smells right and he feels right, and Eliot can't–

It's been weeks. He _can't._

"Eliot, oh my god, Eliot," Quentin, dream Quentin, not real Quentin says, holding on to Eliot. But he _feels real_ , feels solid– nothing at all like a dream. His shirt collects Eliot’s tears like fabric would, until they slow to a gentle leak.

"How– Are you real? Are you just a dream?" Eliot asks, once he can breathe again.

"If I am, how would asking me help?" Quentin returns, little quirk to his lips. It's familiar and it makes him laugh, and then it makes him cry again, cry and cry and cry until he's spent, curled up in this dream Quentin's arms on the little boat under the unfamiliar sky. 

He wakes up tired, emotionally drained, in Margo's bed in Whitespire where he'd fallen asleep the night before. He wakes up to a world without Quentin, and has to process it all over again: he can't walk out into another room to find Q, can't send a bunny to him, can't Travel to him. He will never be able to watch the sun rise in the throne room with Q again, or hold his hand in walking through Central Park in the snow.

Quentin is gone, and Eliot has to remember that every morning when he wakes up for the rest of his life.

There is, of course, the temptation to go back to sleep immediately. Only Margo's worried face and the actual end of the actual world gets Eliot up and out of bed, but when he dreams again that night, it's just a normal dream. And the next one after that. And the next after that. It's so long, in fact, that Eliot writes it off as a particularly vivid bit of grief processing, stress induced, amplified by wild magic.

Except he does dream of Quentin again. The next it happens, he’s not on the boat.

It's a little farm house, with a little garden set in the woods and it – It's not the mosaic but it _feels_ like it. Quentin doesn't look like a memory echo, when Eliot spots him working in the garden, still with his short hair, though maybe a little less of that too-thin edge. He looks up when Eliot moves towards him, and there's delight and surprise on his face.

"I wondered if you were going to come back," he says, _beautiful_ boy with his beautiful voice, god, he makes Eliot's heart ache, his stupid eyes water, even– even in a dream.

"You remember?" Eliot asks, sitting down next to Quentin in the soft earth of the garden as easy as breathing, old half-remembered lifelong habit kicking in. 

"Yes," Quentin says, giving him a look like he's asking a weird question. "I mean, it was a couple of months ago, but– Fuck, I'm not likely to _forget_ you, El."

"I don't want to forget you, either." The words tumble out of Eliot's mouth, sharp and dragging, painful, because– he's been worried about that. He keeps prodding at mental images of Quentin's face in his brain, the memories so painful to touch that Eliot doesn't want to look at them, but he's terrified of pushing them away and losing them. He doesn't know anymore what's a memory from the Happy Place and what's real, actually was Quentin. He's losing track, losing touch, losing _Q_ – he's going to lose him again, to time and the fault of memory. When he speaks again, it wobbles, "I'm terrified I'm going to forget you."

Quentin frowns, dusting his hands off from the dirt. It's such a familiar gesture, it yanks in Eliot's gut. "I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry, Eliot, that I didn't get to see you again. I don't remember much, but I remember going into the Mirror Realm. I remember casting. And then I was here."

"That's it?" Eliot asks, greedy, because if– if somehow this _isn't_ a dream, if this is just some kind of holding place in the Underworld, then maybe they can go and _get him?_

"That's all I remember," Q confirms, and okay. Okay. Eliot can work with that. Something like hope blooms in his stomach, and he tries to squash it down. _This is a dream_ , he reminds himself, and if it's a dream, there's absolutely no reason he can't reach out and touch Q, slide his fingers into the short hair on his forehead and brush it back. It makes Q smile, shy and small, and Eliot's broken heart just– aches. 

"How did you get here?" he asks, because _here_ might just be a part of his own subconscious, but Eliot wants to listen to him talk. The familiar roll of his speech, god, how can you miss someone's personality _so much_. 

"I wanted to be on land for a while," Quentin says with a shrug. "So I sailed in and found a place to stay for a bit. It's not hard. Apparently I can go a lot further than this, but for now this is enough for now. I might go back to the ocean, before I go anywhere else. I like it there."

Eliot wants to ask _how will I find you again_ , but, well. He'd found him here. It's his dream, no matter how real Quentin feels. Where else is his brain going to dump him? But he wakes up this time with a renewed fire, a direction he needs to go no matter if the world is ending or not. He just needs to find a dragon. Luckily, there's one in the Abyss. 

It doesn't work.

There's no one to bring back. 

Eliot spends another week spiraling out of control all over again, drunk and stupid, trying to chase sleep like it's going to bring him home. It doesn't. It doesn't. 

Until it does.

Time passes differently for Quentin, or in this dream, this recurring narrative Eliot's built for himself to cope with the loss, thank you _so much_ therapist-Margo-made-me-see. Sometimes it seems faster, sometimes slower. But it's been weeks for Eliot and months for Q whenever Eliot pops back up again. 

"Everyone keeps telling me I need to move on," Eliot says softly, back on the boat this time, sitting watching Quentin as he works the rigging. "I don't know how to do that. How do I let you go when so much of what I am is– tied up with you."

"You're not giving yourself enough credit," Quentin replies, where he's braced up on the mast of the boat. When Eliot doesn't answer, he stops whatever he's doing, hopping off the platform he's standing on to come sit next to Eliot. "Come on, El. You were incredible before you even met me. I wasn't _that_ important to you."

"If you're part of my subconscious, how the fuck can you not know that's _bullshit_ ," Eliot gripes, watching as Quentin shrugs, wrapping his arms around his knees. It's such a _Quentin_ gesture, it makes Eliot's heart hurt, his eyes prickle, his stomach ache. 

"I still don't think I am," Quentin says, softly. "I remember things that happen when you're not here. I don't– remember anything, after the mirror realm, but I have– memories, from once I got here? I have memories of my life, things I never told you about."

"Sounds like something a hallucination would say," Eliot quips, and Quentin rolls his eyes.

"Listen, dickhead, I was a philosophy major. You can't out play me at 'what is the nature of reality,' so don't even try."

"So what, I'm astral projecting to a place even Travelers can't go?" Eliot asks, hollow, because he'd _asked_ Penny 23, there was no way he was touching something in whatever comes beyond the Underworld. No one gets to touch that. "You were my life partner for 50 years, Q. You were the father of my son. I was in love with you for a really, really long time. There's _nothing_ in me that you didn't touch."

"You never said," Quentin says, and Eliot's stomach rolls, nausea that's more than seasickness hitting.

"I know," he says, hollow, head falling forward to look down at his lap, arms wrapping defensively around himself. "You think I don't regret that, with every single fucking waking breath? I was going to, once I got free, but then– you _died_. And I _miss_ you, and I don't know how to be _me_ anymore, Q." 

"You'll miss me, but you'll move on," Quentin says, soft, and Eliot – _can't_.

"I don't _want to_ move on!" He shouts, eyes hot, face hot, nose clogging up. "You made me _better._ You made me braver, you made me kinder, you made–" and then he's losing the words again, hot tears spilling over his face. He still doesn't cry about this, not in his real life, not out there in the world. _You should mourn,_ Fen had told him, and when he'd said he couldn't she'd replied _Margo said the same thing. If she started, she'd never stop_.

He could start here, because he'll stop when he wakes up. It's just a dream.

It's just a dream.

Except Quentin's hand feels solid when he scoots close enough to reach out, cup the back of his neck and stroke there, fingers soft in the hair at the base of Eliot's skull. It sends shivers down his spine, makes the sobs come harder. "I miss you too," Quentin says softly, close enough that Eliot can just hear his voice over the sound of the water. "When you're not here. When you wake up. I miss you too."

"That hardly seems fair," Eliot forces out, hiccups through the sobs, through the hurt and pain. "If you're just part of my subconscious, you shouldn't have to be sad."

"If I'm me, of course I'm sad," Quentin says, gently, and yeah. Yeah that's about right. Then he's even closer, pulling Eliot to tip sideways a little until he's folded over and leaning into Quentin's chest, letting himself be held. "And if I _am_ part of your brain, well. Seems like all of you is pretty sad too."

"It's not fair," Eliot chokes out, clinging back to this Quentin who feels so solid, so right, even with his short hair and his weird clothes. "Four fucking years actually lived in reality, this tiny little gap of time barely even a blip in the span of my life. But it feels like a canyon. And now I'm supposed to have a version of my life that comes _after_ you? How am I supposed to cut out every part of me that loves you, Q, how am I supposed to do it? How am I supposed to do it?"

"I don't know," Quentin murmurs, head resting on top of Eliot's, holding him close. "I don't know, sweetheart. I've never been able to do it. I'm terrible at letting people go."

"You did it with Ari." 

"Well." Quentin swallows, and Eliot can feel his cheek when he rubs it across the top of Eliot's curls. "I had you." 

"We tried, you know? We took the Abyss dragon to the Underworld, but you weren't in a– a waiting space, you'd moved on. They said because of– you'd changed your book. You were supposed to be dead already. They rushed it."

"I don't remember," Quentin says softly, and this more than anything is what makes Eliot think that this is just a dream– plus, how can this be his Q? It can't. It _can't_. "Eliot... I want you to have a good, full life."

"I _had one_ ," Eliot sobs again, wrenching out of him like he's fucking dying. Oh god, if only. "All I want now is you. I don't– I just want you, Q. I'm trying, I'm trying but I just want you."

The breeze off this unfamiliar ocean ruffles their hair, and Quentin holds him, both of them rocking a little in the movement of the boat. "You have me right now," Quentin promises. "Either I'm me and I'm with you somehow, or I'm a dream and you're carrying me around with you in your heart. But you've got me. You'll always have me."

"I don't want to cut you out of me," Eliot admits, tears streaking down his cheeks, and his Margo-appointed-therapist would have a problem with this, probably, but Eliot suddenly doesn't care. "Quentin, I don't want to carve myself apart to get all of the _you-_ bits out."

"It might mean you hurt for a long time," Quentin says softly, his palm passing over the front of Eliot's chest, rubbing against his heart.

"It's worth it," Eliot insists, sitting up so he can see Quentin's face, look into his beautiful brown eyes. "If it lets me be the person you made me, it's worth it."

Quentin's smile looks real, in the mid-day sun. It feels real when Q kisses him. It feels real, and _right_. And Eliot wants nothing more than this.

It takes 15 years. 

He never stops having the dreams. Quentin doesn't change, really, perpetually 26 years old, though his hair grows and gets cut in intervals. He tries new clothes. Collects new experiences to tell Eliot about. Sometimes Eliot appears in strange places, markets on planets with two moons, abandoned cathedrals 5 stories tall built for worshipping gods Eliot's never heard of. Often times it's the boat. That's home, for Quentin now. Where he returns too, once he's done exploring. Eliot likes it best, there. No one else can see Eliot, but Quentin can, and on the boat that is less strange. It's easier to just relax into this experience. He stops talking about the dreams in his waking life, after a while. No one gets it, everyone thinks it's a trauma scar. Fuck, maybe it is, but it's not a bad one. It's not getting in the way of Eliot living his life on Fillory and Earth.

But it does start to feel like having a second life. Every couple weeks, he pops up wherever Quentin is, and they– talk. Share experiences. Share love, and laughter. It stops feeling like dreams, and–

Eliot's fine. Honestly he is. He's content, because Quentin's not... _gone_ , not really, not for him. Loneliness hits him sometimes, but he has Margo and Margo's beautiful babies who he fucking adores. He's got Fen, a steadfast and solid friend, someone who will always be in his life. He's got magic. He's got a purpose, mostly. He can get sex, even, when he needs it, and finds emotional intimacy in other places.

People stop telling him to move on. They think he has.

But he talks to Quentin every week or so, tells him about life, about frustration and happiness. Kisses him. Holds him. Dreams of making love to him and wakes up in sticky sheets. He finds, somehow, a version of life that is not just bearable but meaningful. He's not stuck in the past, he's living freely, with an anchor in his heart that he sees in his dreams.

Then, when he's 44 years old, he gets caught in the blast of magic protecting one of Margo's children, and his body– ravaged by possession and addiction and misuse– can't pull through.

_("Hey old friend," Penny 40 says, and Eliot– who at this point is very familiar with the Underworld, looks around the Library._

_"Why am I here? Shouldn't I be in a holding area?"_

_"Waiting for your loved ones? That's tricky with you. It's been tricky with all of you," Penny says, and Eliot thinks of Quentin, of the boat which feels as much like home as the palace in Fillory now, after 15 years. "All of you have died many, many times, which is a processing nightmare. But things with Quentin were handled badly, under the old management. His whole situation was rushed through to avoid embarrassment–"_

_"You did a fucking_ cover up _of his death, you mean?" Eliot mocks, an old anger flaring to life, but Penny is unflappable._

_"We expedited it. But there were complications we didn't understand, since he failed to disclose in his Secrets that he'd been– tied to you. It's not in either of your books. The key quest timeline didn't happen, except that time magic is complicated and it altered your souls. In that other life you were tied–"_

_"Married, we were married, you asshole," Eliot snaps._

_Penny sighs. "Your souls were tied, but it happened before you were born in your proper timeline. It screwed some things up, and it wasn't in your books. And neither of you talked about it, so we didn't know. But it means that you've been being pulled towards him since his death."_

_"It was all real?" Eliot asks, heart soaring in his chest._

_"You won't remember this conversation, but. Yes.")_

It's 15 years later, but Eliot isn't carrying every one of those years in his body. He's older than 29, but only the parts of aged he's liked still mark him: the salt and pepper at his temples, the laugh lines around his eyes. The aches are gone. The stiffness. The thinning hair. He stands tall and full like he had as a young man when he appears on the boat, which is familiar and comforting, with it's too-green sea and creaking wood.

When he turns around, Quentin's perched up in his hammock in the rigging, book in his hand, looking the same as he had the last time Eliot dreamed of him: asymmetrical haircut, new from the last place he'd visited, not yet grown out or changed in a fit of boredom. He's wearing a dark red shirt from the market on the two-moon planet, reading lazily in the sunlight. He looks up when Eliot appears, smile on his face.

"Hey," he greets, easy and familiar, like he has a hundred times before. "It's been a while. Eventful couple weeks? Or have you just been having normal dreams?"

"I–" Eliot starts, and his voice catches in his throat, because Quentin is so beautiful and he's real, he's been real all along. "I think I'm here to stay this time." 

He nearly goes overboard with the force of Quentin launching himself off the hammock and over to him, but Eliot braces enough to catch him, perfect tiny little weight in Eliot's arms. He's so solid, warm and sweet when Eliot kisses him.

_Real_.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found as portraitofemmy on most places, but check me out on [twitter](https://twitter.com/portraitofemmy) and [tumblr](https://portraitofemmy.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


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